My U.S. Pat. No. 6,386,295, granted May 14, 2003, and entitled Vibratory Driver For Pipe Piling, includes in its background section an identification of other pile driving apparatuses that are in the patent literature. It also discloses an improved vibratory pile driver that is relatively simple and easy to operate but yet is effective to drive pipe pilings.
I have determined that it is desirable to place pipe piling in the ground by rotating instead of vibrating the pipe piling. There is a need for an improved mechanism for handling sections of pipe piling and placing them in the ground so that a pipe piling is created that is adequately anchored in the ground. An object of the present invention is to fulfil this need.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a quick and easy way of coupling the pipe piling to a drive head portion of the pile driving apparatus, and then decoupling the mechanisms from the pipe piling after the pipe piling has been placed into the ground. It is a further object of the present invention is to provide an improved way of handling sections of pipe piling and coupling them to a rotary drive head.